


The Gemini Affair

by mat



Category: Heat Signature
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 10:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13432791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mat/pseuds/mat
Summary: An on-going fictionalised account of the freedom sought by a group of rebels, led and inspired by noted space pirate Sader Fiasco, and the marks they leave on a galaxy.





	The Gemini Affair

December Delphinus sat at the only safe place in the world. At least, to her it was. It had all the usual amenities you'd expect from a modern space station: a hover-pool table, a holo-jukebox, automatic weapon vendors stocked hourly. The only difference was, this station was independent. Just recently, too, it had been unshackled from the burden of acid taxes and employment restrictions. It was the galaxy's last, and first, free harbour. At least, that was the promise. As December drank her space booze, she looked around at her fellow galactic mercenaries. Vega Sunkins she recognised from an old job. He was strict, in a sense. He took things personally and made sure the job turned out right, no matter the cost. He was strict in favour of his client's wishes. Anything else didn't matter to him. The other two sitting at the bar were strangers to December, but they wouldn't be for long.

There was a fanfare as the elevator reached the bar's level. Out stepped Sader Fiasco, who, to December at least, needed no introduction. Sader was the whole reason this place existed, the inception point for independence itself. She stepped out of the elevator, stumbled over to the nearest booth and lifted a finger in the direction of the barkeep. He nodded at her and she slumped over in a daze.  
"Hey, aren't you Sader Fiasco?" called out the person sitting closest to her, at the bar. Sader groaned, the voice much too loud for how early it was. Early being before she got her drink.  
"Forget it," she mumbled, "There is no Sader Fiasco anymore. I'm retired."  
The person sitting next to December looked over to Sader with an arched eyebrow. "Retired? Aren't you the one who created this place? I thought this was just the beginning. I heard you were just on your way to starting something big."  
"Hey, if you want to start something big, you go right ahead," replied Sader. "That last job was too close a call and I've had enough bullets glitched out of my body for one lifetime."  
"You're, like, a legend!" continued the woman, "Not that I'm too green myself, but I'm nothing compared to you. I bet you could teach us something. Tell us some stories!"  
"Acid is changing this place," said Sader to nobody in particular. "This isn't my game anymore. If you want to do what I do, fine, but you'll be lucky just to make it out alive. I know I am."  
"You'd really help?" December piped up. If there were connections to be made in this place, December needed to grab the opportunity. "Only, there's something I need to do and I don't exactly know how to do it."  
"Well I wasn't offering my services to the room as such, but if you have something you want done, I'm sure I can think of a way to do it. This might not be my game anymore, but I still know the rules better than anyone. I'll tell you what, you tell me what you need done and I'll put out some feelers and, for a fair price, I'll get you a plan. From the great Sader Fiasco herself. Now where's my drink?"

And so, in turn, the four vagrants drinking out in the middle of nowhere pitched their ideas, their wants, their ambitions, to the most famous space cowboy who ever lived. She may have been retired, but she knew a pay day when she saw one. She'd hand out the jobs and get paid whether they got completed or not. All she had to do was sit in a bar and drink all day. Worked for her.

Vega Sunkins, the hardboiled mercenary-of-old, was the first to be granted an audience. His ambition was simple: he wanted to be rich. Rich enough to never have to risk his life for somebody he hadn't met ever again. For this, Sader told him to seek out a machine called the Singye-Regor Device. It didn't matter what it did, what mattered is that it was worth a lot of money to someone. She'd find out where it was, he'd steal it and Sader would fence it for a portion of the profit. There would be more than enough to fund a life of comfort for the both of them.

Yanet Alphecca, the loud member of the group, got a similar deal, only he was young and the Singye-Regor money wouldn't split three-ways, Sader said. Instead, Yanet would have to locate something called The Balwinder Contraption. Again, she said, the properties of the machine weren't a concern to them, just whoever was buying it. In fact, she had a buyer lined up already.

Mali Cassini had bigger motives than profit. She didn't care about money or acid or retirement. She didn't want control or fame. No, she had much more powerful incentives. Last galactic cycle, her partner had been murdered. Brutally. All she was interested in was revenge.  
"Well, revenge is easy," said Sader. "All you have to do is find a person and destroy them. But easy doesn't always get that bad taste out of your mouth. The craving that a vengeful soul possesses. No, for that you have to explore different routes. You can't just end the target of your obsession's life. You have to get into their soul, too. Therein lies real revenge."  
Sader would learn about the person who murdered Mali's partner, a Sovereign officer who had no right to kill. Mali would bring him in to meet with Sader. She knew people who would get the job done. Real revenge. Satisfaction. Sader assured Mali that revenge would be sweet.

By the time it was December's turn, she'd heard the others' stories. She knew the deals they'd made and what it would cost them. She stepped up to the booth and relayed her mission.  
"I know someone who was tortured," said December. "Someone close."  
"Welcome to real life," said Sader flippantly. "What do you need? The revenge package? You heard Mali's story, didn't you? What I told her?"  
"I heard. But that's not what I need. I've seen my friend's scars, the hole where her eye used to be. I transcribed for her letter by letter when she couldn't speak. Torture is too good for a torturer. That's not my revenge. He knows the tricks, he'll withstand it. What I need is a killing."  
"Assassination is easy, if that's what you want."  
"This guy needs to die. If you can find out where he is, I'll pay whatever you want for the location. I'll find him and I'll end his life. I'll do to him what he could never bring himself to do."  
"Cowards are easy to find. Their hiding has a way of radiating weakness, makes them easy to track. I can do that for you."  
"Thank you."

As December stepped away from Sader's booth, Yanet Alphecca approached her. He was holding a hover-cue, looking away from the table as Vega cheated.  
"Are you going to kill your target?" he asked. "I'm sorry, I couldn't help but overhear." He was young, younger than anyone else in the bar. He seemed young.  
"I hope so. What does it matter to you? We're not in this together."  
"Well, the others and I have been talking and, actually, I think we are." He held up a bar napkin with a code written on it. "This is Sader's login for the station console. She gave it to us to accept contracts to work on while we wait for her to make some progress on our favours."  
"It's not a favour if you're paying the person."  
"Well, maybe it could be. She said that if we gather intel ourselves, it wouldn't cost her so much and we could get some kind of discount or something. Plus, we'd be helping the cause."  
"The cause?"  
"Independence means so much to so many people. If they hear about what we're doing and what we're building here on this station, maybe other people will join us."  
"What we're building?"  
"Freedom of movement, freedom to work. A place where people like us can make a living. It's a powerful thing."  
"Okay... So why were you asking about my mission?"  
"It's just, I'm a pacifist. I mean, I'll hurt people, if I need to. But I refuse to kill. I just don't like the idea of working with a murderer, that's all."  
"Then maybe you should talk to your pal Vega over there." She motioned across the room to the old man, who seemed to be trying to dunk holo-pool balls using his hands. Anything for a win. "He's probably killed more people than Sader."  
"Well I'm not going to!" he said quickly, looking slightly embarrassed.  
"Okay, good for you, I guess." She snatched the scrap from his hand. "Anyway, gimme that. I'm going out."

The deal for each of them was 200 acid to start. That would get them the information they wanted. That is, as long as they didn't gather any of the intel themselves. None of them had anywhere near 200 acid, but that didn't stop them from working until they did.

On the board was the perfect job - a quick smash and grab. A client was asking for someone to steal The Fairplay Mark II from a Sovereign ship that was transporting it. The original Fairplay was a type of computer that made automatic predictions and trades on the acid market. December was no expert, but sh'd heard it was powerful. Who knew what the Mark II could do? All she knew was that she wouldn't be able to use it herself, so the only way for her to profit would be to complete this mission. If she didn't, somebody else would. She might even be a part of history. She grabbed her shotgun, handgun and trusty wrench and boarded her capsule, setting off for her first mission as a freelance pirate.

December crept alongside the Sovereign ship in her pod, careful to keep an eye on the heat signature being emitted. Once docked, her eyes lit up in wonder. Sader had given each of the mercenaries a chip that she told them would let them see the whole of any ship their pod was docked with. She thought it was snake oil, some exaggeration to boost their confidence. But no, she could see every room in the ship. Every person, every system, every object lying on the ground. It even displayed people's names. She felt in complete control.Through her implant, December could see the Fairplay II was on the other side of the ship, behind a Level 3 security door. She would have to traverse her way through the whole thing to get to it. She took a deep breath, surveyed the layout one more time and stepped through the airlock.

In the next room were two guards. She was eager to not mess up her first encounter, so she utilized a little-known technique known as "patience" taught to her by an ancient monk. She stood behind cover and waited for one of the guards to walk away, probably to pee or something. Then, gripping her wrench tightly, she made her move. Just as she stepped out of cover, however, the guard saw her. These guards had better sight than she was used to from the simulations. She threw her wrench at him and dodged quickly as the guard's bullet sped by, barely missing both her and the fuel tank beside her. She no longer felt in control. The other guards had heard the gunshot and were coming her way. Not to mention the alarm that was about to be raised, alerting everyone on the ship and signalling for the pilot to return to base. She would have less than 30 seconds to complete her mission.

Luckily, the guard she knocked out with her flying wrench technique, which she learned from a different monk, had dropped a remote key cloner, which would allow her access to different parts of the ship more easily. She glitched it towards her with her standard issue teleporter and cloned the Level 2 keycard of a passing guard. She also glitched her wrench back to her, but that wouldn't be much use anymore; there were four guards patrolling the rooms around her. The wrench wouldn't be fast enough. She would have to bring out the big guns. She loaded her shotgun and got to work. Sorry, Yanet.

December travelled from room to room, blasting away as fast as she could. As she kept shooting, more people were alerted and so they too came under fire. Taking out the pilot ended the alert, but it didn't stop the guards from coming. She even smashed a window at one point, but the automatic airlock system acted quickly enough to stop anything from being sucked out into the vacuum of space. The last person she met was lucky enough to get the wrench treatment, saving his life, but what did survival mean when the ship was now hers? December had ended the lives of eight people, leaving just two crew alive. Unconscious, but alive. She decided to take the ship back to the home station. At least then the living wouldn't be stranded in space with all these bodies. She gathered up everything of use on the ship, including her bounty, The Fairplay Mark II, and set a course for home. Guards Prophecy and Parabola would get a shock when they woke up, but they'd have their lives.

"How did it go?" asked Yanet, jumping up as he saw December arrive.  
"Um, I brought the ship back!" said December, with a twinge of apology in her voice.  
"Don't worry," offered Sader, "I can have that taken care of for you."  
Vega came stumbling through the elevator doors after December, struggling to keep a prisoner in check. "Mission accomplished," he said, knocking the prisoner on the head and dumping him down a delivery chute.  
"Well at least you didn't kill anyone," said Yanet.  
"Heh." Vega smiled genuinely, as if in reminiscence. "Also, I found this. Fun little toy called The Voidmother's Reach. Lets me trade places with anyone on a ship. Pretty handy, huh?"  
"How much do you want for it?" asked Yanet.  
"Uh uh, little one. This ain't no toy."  
"But you just said!"  
"It was one a those things smart people use, a figure a speech. This is a true beauty and I won't part with it."  
"It's a good thing we have separate stashes, even if we are sharing everything else." Mali broke her silence.  
"What's wrong?" taunted Vega, "Don't like sharing?"  
"Don't like thieves is all. Just want what's mine."  
"Well then you can take yours and I'll have mine and we'll be square."  
"Fine by me."  
"Now, now, you two. There's enough of me for everyone! Hahaha." Yanet laughed at his own joke.  
"There won't be when you get torn apart because you're too scared to kill, pretty boy," said Vega, scornfully.  
"I'm not scared, I just don't think it's necessary, ever."  
"Sounds like you should join Offworld Security."  
"No way, I'm not going back there ever again."  
"You were Offworld?" asked December.  
"I tried it. I agreed with their ideals, but in reality, it didn't always work out how I imagined. I prefer it here, where I can live how I want."  
"This is how you want to live?" Mali asked, curiously.  
"Maybe. All I know is I've got a long time to figure it out."  
"Like I said, as long as your ideals don't end it first," said Vega, stroking his gun.

Mali was the next one out. Her mission was to rescue someone by the name of Wanilla Herschel who had been captured by Offworld Security. Some of the guards had heat sensors, but she had a visitor, which let her teleport for a brief time before being pulled back, so she figured it all balanced out. Her chosen weapons were a gun and a longblade, so there wasn't even a pretense of non-lethality. She was in it to save someone's life, that's all she knew. That was enough karmic justification for her.

Docking quickly, she looked around the ship to see eight guards, not including the pilot, who was wearing a visor that blocked his vision. They were making pretty standard rounds, in her experience, and it wasn't anything she couldn't take care of. Nothing she hadn't seen before. Easy as pie. No trouble at all. No reason in the world to be as nervous as she was.  
Quickly dispatching the first group of guards with her sword, she made her way to the pilot. There was a guard with a keycard standing close by, but the pilot had a heat sensor. If she wanted that keycard, she was going to have to take care of him first. She walked up to his seat and stabbed him in the chest, puncturing his lung. Even if he wasn't locked into a headset, he wouldn't have been able to scream. Next it was time for the guard with the keycard. He was standing at a console, facing away. She could have just taken the keycard from his pocket, but if he turned around, he would see the pilot was missing from his seat, even if she did take the time to hide the body. It wasn't worth it. His lung got punctured from behind and Mali picked up the Level 2 keycard.

Mali continued moving through the corridors, using her sword as her backup keycard, and the only thing between her and her rescue target was a final group of three guards. She knew they were Offworld, so they'd only have concussion weapons, but it'd still hurt. Plus, if she failed, she'd have to face the humiliation amongst her group of comrades. That would hurt more than a rubber bullet. Maybe even a real one. She faced her fear and rushed in, adrenaline on her side more than anything else. The first guard from behind with a lunge, a second with a throw of the sword and the third with a bullet. Time seemed to slow in battle - she moved faster than everyone else. Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe something else. All she knew was that she was good. Really good. She just hoped Yanet wouldn't ask about casualties. She picked up a concussive gun as a souvenir from her first freelance mission and carried Wanilla Herschel back to her pod.

* * *

Wanilla Herschel woke up in the medical bay of an unknown station. There were lights all around her and she heard a strange, rhythmic beeping. She had no idea where she was, hence the part about it being an unknown station. The only reason she knew it was a medical bay were the non-copyright infringing symbols on the wall, the standard universal indicator for a health station. Also the part where she was lying in a hospital bed with cables and other medical equipment attached to her. The last thing she remembered was a rubber bullet colliding with her temple after being caught stealing from an Offworld refuelling station. Maybe this was a very relaxed prison. She'd believe it with Offworld Security's pacifist reputation. Maybe they just let their prisoners roam free without any security, ironically, after providing them with proper medical care. That would be nice of them.  
"Hello?" she called out. "Is anyone there? I don't see a call button for the nurse!" There wasn't even a clock. She had no idea was time it was. She had no idea where she was. In space, that can be a difficult thing. Both those things, actually.

Gathering strength, Wanilla took a step out of bed and looked for an exit. None of the cables attached to her were actually penetrating, so she assumed they weren't important. But as soon as she started walking towards the doorway, she heard the distant sound of an alarm in another room. Then, footsteps. She jumped back into bed and turned around, pretending to sleep.  
"I know you're awake," said a voice. "You think we don't have cameras? We monitor everything here. It's in our best interest, you understand."  
Wanilla stayed still.  
"Perhaps you still don't know where you are," came a second voice. "You've been through a lot, after all, and in such a short space of time."  
"At least turn around so we know you're okay. Besides, we need to examine you. Plug you back in."  
Wanilla looked around without turning her head. She didn't see any cameras. "Okay," she said slowly, with an unexpected rasp in her voice. "I'm awake. But I need to know what this place is."  
"We'll tell you everything you need to know," said Voice 2.  
Voice 1 continued, "You're no prisoner here."  
Wanilla turned in her bed to see two men in medical uniforms. They were smiling, almost proudly. "Who are you?" she asked.  
"I'm Doctor Lender," said the man to whom the first voice belonged, "and this is Doctor Yackov."  
"It's true," confirmed Doctor Yackov.  
"And where are we?"  
"Sanctuary," said Yackov.  
"What my colleague means is that we are situated in the first independent station in the galaxy."

Wanilla had heard that a station had broken free, but she thought it was just a rumour. Something people liked to imagine, if only to foster hope. A story you told children to convince them the universe wasn't a cold, empty place.  
"How did I get here?" Wanilla asked, still not fully accepting that here was where she was.  
"I believe a pirate rescued you," said Doctor Lender. "We don't get the full details, just bodies. Hopefully living, as in your case."  
"Rescued?" asked Wanilla, squinting through the haze in her mind.  
"You might still be a little loopy from the medicine. You've been through a lot. We'll plug you back in, take your vitals and make sure you get through to move on to wherever you're going after this. Sound good?"  
Wanilla nodded and closed her eyes, losing consciousness as her head hit the pillow.


End file.
